Gordon's quest
With Sunday's win at Martinsville, Jeff Gordon creeped one race closer to Dale Earnhardt on the all-time wins list. (Earnhardt is second in the 1972-and-later modern era behind Darrell Waltrip, who has 84 wins.)
Gordon now has 71 wins to Earnhardt's 76. Chances are, Gordon won't catch Earnhardt this season. Sure, he's got two wins in six races so far this season. But as good as Gordon is, he's won only six races a season once since 2000 -- it was in 2001 -- and remember he started the season seven back of Dale Sr.
I've always been curious as to how Gordon and Earnhardt stack up against each other at the various tracks around the NASCAR circuit. Dustin Long was kind enough to put the chart together yesterday. We didn't have room for it in today's paper (we barely had room for Dustin's story on Gordon), so here's the list:
Track: Earnhardt wins-Gordon wins
Atlanta: 9-4
Bristol: 9-5
California: 0-3
Charlotte: 5-4
Darlington: 9-6
Daytona: 3-6
Dover: 3-4
Indianapolis: 1-4
Kansas: 0-2
Las Vegas: 0-1
Martinsville: 6-6
Michigan: 2-2
Nashville: 2-0
New Hampshire: 0-3
North Wilkesboro: 5-1
Phoenix: 1-0
Pocono: 2-3
Richmond: 5-2
Rockingham: 3-4
Sears Point: 1-4
Talladega: 10-3
Watkins Glen: 0-4
Neither driver has won at Chicago, Homestead or Texas.
Some interesting stuff here. Gordon's skill on road courses shows up here -- he's got an 8 to 1 lead over Earnhardt at Sonoma and Watkins Glen. But despite his legendary struggles in the Daytona 500, Earnhardt holds a 13-9 edge at the superspeedways (and that doesn't count all of the qualifying and IROC wins Earnhardt had at Daytona).
On the short tracks (Bristol, Martinsville, North Wilkesboro and Richmond), Earnhardt holds a huge 25-14 edge.
So who's better? I'm not touching that one. You can make a pretty compelling case for either.
Comments (2)
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Yeah, I can't pick one either. In the time they competed together, Gordon gets the edge. But Earnhardt was great back in the 80's and especially the early 90's, while Gordon picked up from the mid-90's and forward. We'll call it a draw for right now.
Posted on April 12, 2005 5:49 PM
As much as I like big E, I'll have to give the edge to Gordon. When I look at it honestly the breadth of competition is greater for the 12 years of Gordon compared to any 12 year range of big E.
Posted on April 12, 2005 7:41 PM